03
Apr
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Samsung's Nexus S, the first Gingerbread device, was a T-Mobile exclusive in the U.S. until last month, when Sprint announced the Nexus S 4G - a CDMA (and WiMAX) counterpart of this sleek stock Android device. Can Samsung pull the same trick it did with the Galaxy S phones that came to all U.S. carriers? It sure looks like it.

We've already seen a Nexus S with model GT-I9020A (as opposed to T-Mobile GT-I9020T) hit the FCC with AT&T bands, and now the same exact model has shown up on Samsung's own site, citing AT&T as the carrier. Whether Ma Bell will subsidize it or not (they didn't offer subsidies for the Nexus One) remains to be seen, but now the AT&T Nexus S is all but officially confirmed.

02
Apr
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MT3G Slide owners, you won't believe your eyes today. April Fool's has passed, and T-Mobile is not trolling you - the Froyo update is indeed available for the poor younger brother of the original myTouch 3G which already received Froyo almost 6 months ago. Don't let the name fool you, as there are, apparently, quite a few differences between the 2 devices - enough to tie up the release for such a long time.

The update is not over-the-air (OTA) - you will have to download it from HTC's servers, which are coincidentally on fire right now, barely pushing out the file at 6-7 KB/s.

01
Apr
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You've already seen the very early unboxing of Sprint's upcoming dual-screen Kyocera Echo, and now Wirefly went for an even deeper, more detailed look at the UI itself and all the arguably cool things you can do with such an unconventional interface. The Echo has many people skeptical, but now you can at least try to decide for yourself whether the 2-screen design is a complete gimmick or not. One thing is for sure - if the manufacturer has to include 2 batteries straight in the box, don't expect any world records out of this power-sucker.

Oh, and I have a feeling TechCrunch won't be covering this one.

01
Apr
T-Mobile Samsung Sidekick 4G

While T-Mobile still remains quiet about the Sidekick 4G's release date, it looks like RadioShack just couldn't keep the news any longer. Thanks to a tweet from the official RadioShack Twitter account, we now know that the Sidekick 4G will be available on April 20th. That's pretty exciting news for those looking to grab the newest version of the ever-so-popular texting machine, especially when combined with the $99 (with a two year contract) price tag.

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The Sidekick 4G, manufactured by Samsung this go around, includes a 1GHz Hummingbird processor, a VGA front facing camera, a 3MP (ugh) rear camera, 512MB RAM, a full 5-row QWERTY keyboard, and Android 2.2.

31
Mar
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Among all the awesome (or really bad, depending on your mood) April Fool's jokes today, Google's web form for submitting Android Market copyright infringements towers above all, especially considering it's not a joke, at all. We really doubt that it's intentional because this behavior was present before April 1st arrived to California, and it is mind boggling that something like this would fall through the cracks and get past Google's Quality Assurance. Alas...

Upon submitting the relatively lengthy form that is meant to report copyright violations in the Market, instead of a Thank You message, the [most likely innocent smalltime] copyright holder is presented with the following:

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So, imagine that you spent hundreds of hours developing an application and suddenly found that someone ripped it off, stuffed it with ads, and submitted back to the Market.

31
Mar
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Just in time for the UK release of the Sony Xperia Play, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited (can we just say SCEEL for short?) has started to release Playstation games on the Android Market. So far, only five games have been released, including Syphon Filter and MediEvil, but I'm sure that many more are on the way (Metal Gear Solid, anyone?). Naturally, I tried to install one of these games, only to be denied.

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However, according to yesterday's leak, we should see the Xperia Play hit Verizon stores in the US on April 14th, so it won't be too much longer before that dream becomes a reality.

31
Mar
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It’s about time someone read the memo about Honeycomb tablet pricing being too damn high. According to Best Buy’s website, the Asus EEE Pad Transformer will be dropping at the awesomely low price of $400. If you haven’t heard about the the EEE Pad Transformer, check this out:

Yeah, it’s that cool. The EEE Pad Transformer ships with Honeycomb, a 10.1 inch display, Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, 1GB of RAM, and 16GBs of storage. No word on pricing for the keyboard dock, but for a $400 Honeycomb tablet, who wants to stand in line with me?

Update: Aaaand, it's gone, at least for now.

31
Mar
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The ability to locate your expensive bundle of joy, when lost or worse, stolen, is priceless. And arguably more so, is the capability to prevent whoever is using it from accessing your personal data and photos while placing premium rate phone calls to xxx numbers in Eastern Europe.

It's peace of mind that even if your phone is truly gone for good, then the biggest expense you'll incur will be a new handset, and hell, the insurance that you are paying through the nose for, should cover that.

This is why apps such as Lookout Mobile Security, Theft Aware, and WatchDroid Pro exist.

31
Mar
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HTC Flyer, also known as the HTC View 4G in the U.S. on Sprint, is one of the more interesting Android tablets coming out within the next few months, due to its superfast 1.5GHz processor, a perfect for many (as the Nook Color and Galaxy Tab showed) 7" size, palm rejection technology, and the Scribe digital pen.

Sure, we got a few hands-on here and there, but nobody can be as good as HTC itself at highlighting the best features of the tablet, at least until we get our own review units.

In this 6-minute video that surfaced a few hours ago, HTC showcases the tablet's aluminum unibody construction, sleek looks, the new Sense for tablets with improved homescreen swiping, gaming, video playback, and the Scribe pen.

30
Mar
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CyanogenMod 7 has earned its reputation as the most reliable Gingerbread ROM, even though it hasn't yet entered stable mode. And tonight, the fun goes on - RC4 RC3.14159265358979323846264338327, as the CM team so lovingly refers to it, has just been launched for all supported CM devices.

While RC4 doesn't contain any ground-breaking new features, it does bring a number of bug fixes - for example, hardware acceleration has been added to the Nook Color, and EGL has seen a big fix. It isn't perfect yet - kmobs notes that there may be some "lingering GPS issues on the EVO and the N1 call audio bug hasn't been fully fixed" - but it's still worth the update.